Monthly Archives: July 2023

The Expanse: A Telltale Series – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A little slow and sluggish in places, but it immediately brings you into this world and makes you want to explore every part of this story.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

Looking over Jupiter.

The Expanse Review –

Now it should be no surprise to anyone who knows me, that I adore The Expanse. I have absorbed all the novels, short stories, and the TV Show that might be one of the better adaptations out there. Now while it looks like we might have reached the end of the novels, and the TV Show for the moment, when I heard that there would be a video game adaptation, well, I had to check it out.

So to set the scene, before Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) ended up at Tycho Station and after she escaped Dawes (Stephan Frost) on Ceres, she was an XO on the Belter salvaging vessel Artemis under Captain Cox (Jeffrey Roark). They are coming up on the last score they ever need to take, with the ruins of the UNN Urshanabi before them. However, it may not be the simple heist it first appears to be.        

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Twisted Metal: Season 1– TV Review

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TL;DR – It could have been more intense, but it becomes a surprisingly interesting car chase when it gets going.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause .

St Louis behind a wall.

Twisted Metal Review –

It is a very odd time for video game adaptations, where we are oscillating wildly from adaptations that still feel embarrassed about their source material to those that are perfect recreations. In this shifting dichotomy, we get Twisted Metal, a game that I think few have considered since its PS2 days, bar that image of the clown. But the question is: can you turn that into a compelling narrative? Well maybe.

So to set the scene, 20 years ago, the world fell apart as a virus destroyed the world’s computers. This apocalyptic event split the world in two. Some walled themselves up inside cities, and those who got booted outside. It is a lawless void, but people must still take supplies between the cities. Insert the milkmen, of which there is no better than John Doe (Anthony Mackie). But it might be worth driving into the unknown when he is allowed to find a home. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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The Flight of the Milkmen in Twisted Metal Season 1 – Map-It

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TL;DR – We chart the route of John Doe the Milkman through post-apocalyptic America in Twisted Metal.

A vulture on the roof.

Mapping Twisted Metal –

We have just finished Twisted Metal, and at the time of writing, our full review will be out soon. I did want to take a moment to look at the route that they took across the post-apocalyptic landscape of America.

In some respects, I got feelings of The Last of Us, but with a loop rather than a march across the continent. Also, vultures other than zombies. Oh, and a markedly increased vehicular murder count.

In the map, we have, of course, the main route that they take from New San Francisco to New Chicago and back again. But also every location mentioned in the show or seen on different maps. The red line is the apparent barricade stretching across the continent, a significant effort. I would have liked to see more walled-up cities, but this was a good start.

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Twisted Metal: WLUDRV – TV Review

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TL;DR – This episode works very well as a vibe check because you probably will have a fair assumption about whether this is your bag for the rest of the season by the time the credits roll.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

A vulture on the roof.

Twisted Metal Review –

There are some video games that you know from the iconography alone. One of those is Twisted Metal. I never played the game myself, but some aspects are instantly recognisable. But can the show take those elements and turn them into a story? Well, that is what we are finding out today.   

So to set the scene, 20 years ago, the world fell apart as a virus destroyed the world’s computers. This apocalyptic event split the world in two. Some walled themselves up inside cities, and those who got booted outside. It is a lawless void, but people must still take supplies between the cities. Insert the milkmen, of which there is no better than John Doe (Anthony Mackie). But it might be worth driving into the unknown when he is given an opportunity to find a home. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Under the Cloak of War – TV Review

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TL;DR – This episode brought a smile to my face from the moment it started till the second those end credits rolled.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

USS Kelcie Mae

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

Well, this week, we get the incredible joy of having not one but two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. However, they could not be more different as we jump from the joyful romp of Those Old Scientists to a deep exploration of grief and loss and the wounds of war are laid bare.

So to set the scene, the USS Enterprise has rendezvous with the USS Kelcie Mae to collect the Federation ambassador Dak’Rah (Robert Wisdom) from the Prospero System. An ambassador who is a Klingon who defected during the War. This is difficult for many of the crew who fought during the Federation-Klingon War, for example, Chapple (Jess Bush) and M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), who were posted on the Moon of J’gal. How do you break bread with a man soaked in the blood of innocents? Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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Secret Invasion: Home and Full Season – TV Review

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TL;DR – This was a series that felt like it could be something spectacular, but it never came together, leaving a frustrating mess.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

Nick Fury.

Secret Invasion Review –

I know many people that have struggled with the MCU post-Endgame, and I can see where they are coming from. I have pretty much liked or at least found fine everything bar the miss that was Ant-Man, but as I sat down to watch Secret Invasion, I had concerns, which turned out to be justified. In today’s review, we will first look at the series finale and then a broader look at the season as a whole.

So to set the scene, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) continues to push the world’s nations into all-out war, wanting it as a prelude to the extermination of the Human Race. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is on the run with very few pieces he can play, but one of them is the one thing Gravik wants, the Harvest. Here is the DNA of all the superhuman/alien/Norse gods etc., in one place, the thing needed for the Super-Skrull technology. But can Nick Fury stop Gravik before he starts his war with a replaced Rhodes (Don Cheadle) whispering in the president’s (Dermot Mulroney) ear. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode and season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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Mapping Mission: Impossible 2023 Update – Map-It

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TL;DR – We map all the locations Ethan Hunt and his team have visited.  

Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise running.

Mapping the Impossible –

All the way back in the before times of 2018, one of the first maps we constructed for our Map-It series was of the Mission: Impossible franchise. It was an old-style map, and parts of it have not aged all that well. But with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One jumping back onto our screens galivanting across the planet, now felt like the perfect time for an update.

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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While the individual set piece moments are as good as ever, the connecting tissue feels a bit flat this time.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise running.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One Review –

When I think back to the Mission: Impossible franchise, the first thing that comes to mind is solid consistency. You can know what to expect from the film before you walk in the door, and they nearly always deliver, yes, even M: I 2. I was delighted to see the next entry, even when a ‘Part One’ moniker is often a bit of a red flag and while those solid aspects are still there, some elements were lacking.

So to set the scene, we are under the Bearing Sea with the Russian submarine Sevastopol as it tests its new AI stealth drive. This drive has allowed it to approach the navies of every world power without being detected. However, when they are heading back to port, something odd happens when an American submarine suddenly sees them but disappears from their monitors after they fire torpedoes. But destruction soon follows. Two keys lead to the sub’s heart, and one ends up in the hands of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) in the Yemeni Desert. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) tasks Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to obtain the key that every nation in the world wants because, with it, they can control the AI that is currently destroying every intelligence apparatus they have.    

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Those Old Scientists – TV Review

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TL;DR – This episode brought a smile to my face from the moment it started till the second those end credits rolled.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

The Strange New Worlds title sequence done in the style of Lower Decks.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

A cross-over episode used to be the mainstay of network television, with some franchises building their worlds upon it. But for every Brooklyn Nine-Nine/ The New Girl moment that is so perfectly placed that it lives on in memes. You have a sea of awkward messes that fail to elevate either side. Star Trek saw this and went, you know what, let’s take this issue of trying to get two different shows with different vibes to work and add the extra difficulty of both shows being a different medium. But does it work? Oh, yes, it does.   

So to set the scene, it is 2381, and the USS Cerritos has arrived at Krulmuth-B to take a regular scan of the portal on the surface. It has not been active since the time of Pike, but you always need to make sure. Ensigns Boimler (Jack Quaid), Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Tendi (Noël Wells), and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) beam down to the planet to make sure. It was all going well until the portal is accidentally activated when Boimler is posing for a photo and is sucked in before Mariner can grab him. Waking up after being jettisoned, Boimler looks up to see himself in the sickbay of an old Constitution Class ship to see the one and only Captain Pike (Anson Mount) staring down, and well, he ain’t in Kansas anymore. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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They Cloned Tyrone – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A weird and fascinating film, full of style and an ending that does not hold back.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

losing lotto card.

They Cloned Tyrone Review –

Blaxploitation films are a genre I am familiar with but not nearly as versed with as I should be. It is a world, a vibe, a style of filmmaking, and a world that I need to know more about. There is no better time than the present; if it stars one of the current generation’s best actors, that is just gravy.

So to set the scene, Fontaine (John Boyega) runs a drug empire in the local neighbourhood, but one constantly under threat by people moving into his territory. It is a dangerous world, and one day as he tries to get money owed to him by Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), danger catches up to him as he gets gunned down in his car. Fontaine is dead, dead-dead, making it all the more interesting when he wakes up in bed the next day.  

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